September 2017, at The Chazan Gallery

The Chazan Gallery at Wheeler is pleased to present

Intersections, Architecture and Nature,

a group exhibition of works by

Emmett Barnacle, Colby Charpentier, Ruby Dorchester and Adam Waimon, from September 21 to October 14, 2017. 

A Gallery Night Providence reception will be held on September 21, from 5:00-8:00 pm. The public is invited.

Emmett Barnacle’s focus is on architecture and memory, while dealing with the concepts of home and human habitat, as well as our relationship with our surroundings.

Due to his family’s involvement in the real estate industry, architecture and the overall concept of “home” have been a consistent influence for him and a huge part of his life. Within his work, Barnacle aims to deal with these subjects through the themes of memory and architecture. For him, glass is the perfect medium to create sculpture because of its ability to capture a specific memory or moment in time. Much of his work’s focus stems from past experience, architecture, memory, blueprints, ancient civilization, travel, tradition, building, and edged weaponry and cutlery.

Featuring architectural scenes and cityscapes cast in glass, his work aims to mimic and examine the historic “bare bones” upon which our cities are built. Stylistically interpreted Greco-Roman and Asiatic elements merge, creating playful scenes in lieu of traditional renditions.

For Barnacle, working in glass is both a privilege and a pleasure. With such a rich history, there is already so much that has been discovered and produced, but yet, there is still so much left to learn. Glass is both a material and a puzzle experimentation, with failure being all part of the extensive process it takes in order to get the piece the way it is envisioned, making its final completion all that much more satisfying.

Emmett Barnacle was born in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1988. He began working in glass with Peån Doubulyu Glass and artist Steven Weinberg before attending the Rhode Island School of Design and graduating in 2014. After graduation he began his own studio in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Other than making art, Emmett has worked as a technical assistant for glass artist and sculptor Daniel Clayman for the past two years as well as other freelance work for other artists.

Colby Charpentier’s work is an investigation of contemporary vessel archetypes through vessel-oriented ceramic and glass sculpture. He is intrigued by ceramics and glass as peripheral materials. These are materials that we contact daily through tableware, sparkplugs, microchips, and architecture. By association with the vessel, clay and glass are part of nearly every creation story across the world. The ubiquitous, shared experience of clay and glass is democratizing, but contributes to them existing in the periphery. The project of Charpentier’s work is a celebration of these materials and their associated vessel context. Through physically and mechanically idiosyncratic situations he intends to incite curiosity. He responds to vessel archetypes and material perceptions of clay and glass with broad challenges. For example, what makes a bowl? What is at the core of bowl identity? And how can we make clay and glass do the things we think it shouldn’t?

Colby Charpentier grew up in Smithfield, RI where he began building and firing wood kilns at the studio of Bruce Lenore. He went on to study ceramics and glass at Alfred University, where he graduated with a BFA in 2013. He then worked as a studio assistant to Chris Gustin and Daniel Clayman for three years, while engaged in an artist residency at Dew Claw Studios. After completing an artist residency at Sonoma Ceramics in Sonoma, CA, Colby will continue making clay and glass as a professional artist.

Ruby Dorchester creates artwork inspired by the subtle and intrinsic systems which run inherently through our natural world. Working primarily in glass, she uses the medium and its rich possibilities to question and represent her ideas, posing questions which provoke reflection.

Dorchester’s first series, In Situ, was inspired by her deep curiosity for the engineering of human anatomy, evolved from her lifelong study of martial arts. An abstraction of the figurative, her disarticulation of the spine—the foundational architecture of our anatomy—enables her to rouse and interrogate this modular unit, revealing its desire to structurally join and create new forms. 

Dorchester’s current series “Nether” comes as a remembrance of home and her time spent amongst the mountainous geological formations of the Rockies: their scale, the layers upon layers of rock, skyscraping peaks once submerged underwater, and the earthy color that is so distinctly unique to that part of the country. She creates works meant to connect with others using a shared visual language of a natural and geologically rich visual vocabulary and, through this series, convey sculpturally the allure of the natural world.

A Colorado native, Ruby Dorchester received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 2014, with a concentration in Glass.

Using glass as her primary medium, Dorchester has shown in both national and local exhibitions and has been featured in several publications, including Behance’s Art Served. Dorchester continues to work locally in Rhode Island out of her studio located in Pawtucket, and as a studio assistant to local sculptors and glass artists. 

  Adam Waimon’s sculptural glass forms incorporate subtle monochromatic transparent color. This singular use of color allows the delicately engraved surface to refract and transmit light. Thousands of round depressions are carved into the surface of the glass forms to imply various textures and patterns found in nature, which is the focal point and primary inspiration for his work. Waimon utilizes the glass to create strong elegant forms with a minimalist approach. Multiple forms are often placed together allowing for interaction and use of negative space. 

Through a multiple stage process of blowing, sculpting, grinding/carving and reheating of the glass, Waimon is able to unearth his abstract yet relatable sculptural forms. Each stage brings technical challenge along with creative resolve.

Formally trained at Massachusetts College of Art & Design in Boston Waimon has been working in the glass arts for over 15 years and has continued to study under some of the world’s leading glass masters. Waimon has exhibited in numerous galleries throughout the United States including Ken Saunders Gallery (IL), Morgan Glass Gallery (PA), Behnke Doherty Gallery (MA), Piece Art Gallery (CO), Bakalar Gallery (MA), Heather Gaudio Fine Art (CT), Art/Prov Gallery (RI), Aberson Exhibits (OK). His work has been juried into auctions to benefit the Tacoma Museum of Glass (WA), Museum of Fine Art (MA) and is in the permanent collection at the Mattatuck Museum (CT). Adam Waimon has been included in multiple publications, most notably, The New York Times (NYC), New England Home Magazine (CT), and Original Voices exhibition catalog (IL).

#MyGalleryNight

For further information please contact Elena Lledó at elenalledo@chazangallery.org.

C H A Z A N   G A L L E R Y @  W H E E L E R   

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4 0 1 . 4 2 1 . 9 2 3 0  Elizabeth Kilduff, Director